BACKGROUND Freshwater duckweed, comprising the smallest, fastest growing and simplest macrophytes has various applications in agriculture, phytoremediation and energy production. Lemna minor, the so-called common duckweed, is a model system of these aquatic plants for ecotoxicological bioassays, genetic transformation tools and industrial applications. Given the ecotoxic relevance and high pote...

Turions play an important role in the survival strategy of the duckweed Spirodela polyrhiza. Therefore, factors influencing the formation of these survival organs were studied. Phosphate deficiency is the main natural factor inducing turion formation and the specific turion yield (SY), i.e. the number of turions formed per frond, varied widely for five different clones from different climate zo...

Andy Y. Shih,1,2,3 Herman B. Fernandes,1,2,3 Fiona Y. Choi,1,2,3 Michael G. Kozoriz,4 Yingru Liu,1,3 Ping Li,1,2 Catherine M. Cowan,2,3 and Andis Klegeris2 1Graduate Program in Neuroscience, 2Kinsmen Laboratory of Neurological Research, 3Brain Research Centre, and 4Department of Cellular and Physiological Sciences, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V6T 1Z3 Revi...

Boron (B) is often found in polluted and desalinated waters. Despite its potentially environmental damaging effects, efficient treatments are lacking. The duckweed Lemna gibba has been shown to remove toxic elements from water; however, its applicability to B removal is unknown. In this study, L. gibba was examined for its tolerance to B in water and its B removal efficiency. Duckweed plants we...

Background; Recently, there has been a great concern about the consumption of dyes because of their toxicity, mutagenicity, carcinogenicity, and persistence in the aquatic environment. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the feasibility of using Lemna minor for Acid Blue 292 (AB292) dye removal from aqueous solution and to determine the optimal conditions. Methods; This experimen...